Collaboration technologies over computer networks bring individuals together for collaboration relating to specific or ad-hoc topics. As virtual communities have evolved, there are a variety of technical approaches being used to connect individuals in collaborative sessions. These virtual communities increasingly require participation from individuals and groups in collaboration sessions from outside of their localized virtual community.
When combining remote virtual communities, some collaboration discussions in the localized virtual community will need to be kept local, while some collaborative discussions need to be shared with other remote virtual communities.
Traditional collaboration technology maintains a 1:1 relationship between users and presence information. Each client is represented by their individual User ID appearing in a collaboration client user-list.
Virtual communities are evolving to Network Centric Operations that collaborate as communities instead of individuals. The collaborative approach of the present invention enable virtual communities to coordinate activities and take advantage of broad groups of knowledge in finding solutions to immediate challenges.
Network Centric Operations increase the demand for online collaboration. As the demand for online collaboration increases, the number of potential users can quickly become unmanageable.
However, mistakes may be made by participants within a collaborative environment and the wrong conclusions may be reached by participants of conventional Network Centric Operations because participants may be inadvertently left out of group discussions.
Traditional collaboration integration approaches provide the ability to connect individuals using the same collaboration technology to individuals that are part of a intra- or inter-community.
Traditional collaboration integration approaches also provide the ability to connect individuals to individuals using different collaboration technologies to individuals within an intra- or inter-community.
While existing devices suit their intended purpose, there remains a need for a system and method that connects virtual communities using either the same or different collaboration technologies including specific and ad-hoc collaboration.